Loki Support Pages/No RPMs

Installing RPM's on non-RedHat systems

Some vendors, like 3dfx, have chosen RPM as their distribution format because many distributions support RPM, or can at least convert RPM to their native package format. Loki uses self-extracting archives (usually with a GUI installer) and compressed tarfiles, but we do not repackage drivers and system conponents.

Installing a package without an installer is not a trivial task. Furthermore, installing a package from a hardware vendor might conflict with the version provided by your distributor (e.g. the XF86_SVGA server from 3dfx conficts with RedHat).

There are several tools available to help you in handling RPM files on systems that do not have that ability.

The absence of a vendor-neutral version numering scheme and the lack of a standard installer and a standard interface with vendor-specific package management databases makes it very difficult for hardware vendors to provide drivers. The Linux Standard Base is adressing the first issue.